Is New York City a Safe Haven For Abortion Seekers? These Activists Don’t Think So
While City Hall touts an abortion friendly agenda, abortion advocates in the city contend with a different reality. Increasingly, activists are asking: is New York actually safe?
Last Saturday morning, Bex — a member of New York City for Abortion Rights, an abortion advocacy group — waited outside the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, on the corner of Mott and Prince Street. The 24-year-old, who asked that their real name not be used for safety and privacy reasons, was there with fellow group members. They meet there on the first Saturday of every month to counter-protest Witness for Life — a program headed by the Archdiocese of New York and made up largely by anti-abortion parishioners.
After Mass, a slew of WLF members exit the church and — with an NYPD escort — walk two blocks to the Planned Parenthood clinic on Bleecker Street. They spend a few hours planted by the clinic entrance, hoping their prayers (and other tactics) will dissuade pregnant patients from seeking abortion. To stymie the churchgoers’ procession, Bex and other NYC for Abortion Rights members form a blockade in front of them, walking as slow as possible. On a good day, they’re able to completely stave them off. On a bad day, their members are arrested.
Last Saturday, three were.
Bex, hailing from a religious family in the South, is more than familiar with anti-abortion sentiment. What worries them is its growing presence, and influence, in New York City. “It’s so important [that] people in New York City [know] that this is happening. And that you shouldn’t be ignoring it,” Bex says. “The fact that it’s happening in Soho is just mind boggling. And I think is such a good illustration of how under attack the right to abortion is.”
It’s been about eight months since the U.S Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and thousands of pro-choice New Yorkers took to the streets to protest — and mourn — the consequential ruling. City Hall responded to New Yorkers’ worries with a promise to remain a safe haven to abortion seekers. But activists aren’t entirely convinced.
According to advocates, safe and secure abortion access isn’t guaranteed. Even in New York City, a supposed liberal mecca. Almost half of the city-run sexual health clinics have been shut down since the start of the pandemic. There are more anti-abortion centers than there are abortion clinics in the city. And patients seeking medical care at reproductive health centers are routinely harassed by anti-abortion demonstrators, who themselves are typically protected by the NYPD.
Activists are particularly concerned by the NYPD’s deployment of the Strategic Response Group (SRG): an elite, 700-person unit formed in 2015 to focus on counterterror work. Even though the NYPD originally claimed in 2015 that the squad would “not be involved in handling protests and demonstrations,” activists say they are present, and aggressive, at most abortion protests. Their violent tactics landed them in a recent oversight hearing (which they skipped) and in the middle of a historic settlement to individuals who were attacked by them during a 2020 protest.
Bex, who also works in climate advocacy, has noticed a difference in how the SRG reacts to protests across the city. They describe the SRG’s more “hands off” approach at climate protests where, they say, the crowd is white, affluent, and less critical of police. “But when it comes to abortion protests, not only has our organization spoken out against this very unit, but our group is this intersectional social feminist group,” Bex explains. “We have a lot of comrades of color. We have a lot of non-heterosexual, non-male, masc comrades. And so it all kind of coalesces in how they treat us.”
This past week, Mayor Eric Adams said he thinks the SRG is “an appropriate tool used effectively.”
Bex thinks Adams’ statement is telling of his general approach to abortion: push the narrative that it’s a protected right, but do little else to ensure its protection. “[Adams] knows that [the SRG] is harassing clinic defenders; our videos went viral in December… I think that tells you everything you need to know about the city’s actual stance when it comes to abortion.”
Activists often bemoan city officials — specifically Adams — who lousily respond to the issues at hand with what they argue are ill-timed comments and unconsidered solutions.
In January, Adams touted a new policy to offer free abortion pills in city-run sexual health clinics — which largely provide low- to no-cost services to marginalized community members. However, three of the eight sexual health clinics haven’t reopened since being shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. When reached for comment on the status of the reopenings, a spokesperson at the Department of Health replied, “We are continuing to monitor the situation. Anyone in need can call the Abortion Access Hub for help coordinating care.”
Launched last November, the Hub is a call line that connects callers to local, licensed abortion care providers in the city. Towards the bottom of the Hub’s online information sheet, there’s a disclaimer cautioning callers about anti-abortion clinics — also known as pregnancy crisis centers — which often cosplay as real health clinics in an effort to stop people from seeking abortions. Josh Pacheco, a 30-year-old journalist and activist who often covers abortion protests, says they are frustrated that the most the city has done regarding these pregnancy crisis centers is make a disclaimer about them.
“The fact that there [are] no laws delineating what is a medical care facility and what is a religious propaganda hub for dissuading someone from getting an abortion should be criminal,” Pacheco says. “… And it does not help that Eric Adams has been on the record disavowing the separation of church and state.”
But it’s not just bureaucratic failures, the SRG, and pregnancy crisis centers that activists are worried about. Bex says they’ve noticed a growing number of antis (anti-abortion protesters) traveling in from other states to attend demonstrations in the city. “Since they’ve won in red states, they’re going to blue states now to harass us and to harass the patients that we have here, to try to continue those wins that they’ve had,” Bex explains.
Pacheco noticed that same increase.
“The anti-abortion crowd has been building, and building, and building,” they say. “I remember I was in [New York] in July and it was maybe a third of [their current] size… So they’re definitely growing… it’s their new breeding ground for monotheistic religious hate, to attack medical care.”
Bex really only sees two ways out of the city’s anti-abortion conundrum: continue defending the clinics, and pushing for free, equitable abortion on demand. As long as pro-abortion advocates counterprotest the anti-abortion movement’s migration into the city, they said, it’ll be clear that New York City will remain a safe haven for abortion seekers.
“They’re not welcome in the city, and they will not have refuge anywhere in the city,” Bex says.
